


Not How the World Ends

by burning_nova



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character Death, tony is a father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-11
Updated: 2014-05-11
Packaged: 2018-01-24 08:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1597757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_nova/pseuds/burning_nova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a hero was never easy.  Being a hero was not something Tony Stark ever should have played.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not How the World Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings at the end!

He was an accident, a left over from a one night stand before he had a ‘thing’ with Pepper. He could have been used for millions, but his mother was rich in her own right. She did not want him. Signed over, Tony Stark had sole custody and parental rights to a boy that had been called Howard Prescott II (named after the mother’s own father) before Tony changed his name to Stark (the II as well). 

Howie (he only responded to Howie, until he had been older and understood his name was *Howard*, like his grandfather) took a shine to him immediately and Tony Stark fell in love. He knew it was ridiculous to love a mini-him because of his blood connection; he had loved and hated his father equally so the tie of blood was not an automatic door into such feelings. 

Maybe it was the idea of being able to be a better father than Howard that really caused the first sparks of affections. 

It didn’t matter. He grew to love his son and gifted him the world. Howie looked nothing like him. His skin was mocha and his eyes were colored hazel. He looked his mother. 

Howie looked nothing like his mother, because Pepper became Mom. Tony was Daddy, then Dad, and sometimes Anthony when he was lippy. 

Howie was Tony’s most precious creation, and not because his sperm had helped build him biologically. No, Tony helped create the man that Howie would become. Tony thought he finally understood his father’s words to him, or maybe that was another lie forced himself to believe in. 

The world grew as Howie did. Aliens came and were a regular part of the news, not all of them hostile. Thor became King of Asgard, extending an official and known olive branch of aid to Earth. SHIELD fell and regrew free of the claws of HYDRA. 

The Avengers became only one of the groups of ‘superheroes’ saving the world, not simply the only one. He was Iron Man, and Tony Stark. 

Tony was getting older and wanted to retire, watch Howie graduate from high school (early at fifteen just like him) and head to college (majoring in Art because he could, or so he said at the moment. Last year it had been History.). 

Pepper stepped down from running his company and Tony transitioned to a more domestic role, or that was the Plan. 

“Howie!” Pepper called as the boy ran to him. He grinned through a shaggy mane of hair. Tony grinned, his goatee now a shade of grey he did remember seeing transition from his old dark locks. “Don’t run in the office!” She said half-heartedly. 

Tony ignored her as did Howie. They hugged, a battle hard won and Howie was proud of the fact that his father was Tony Stark, not just Iron Man. If he was not in front of his friends. Then Tony brought out the baby pictures. (Tony had had a right to embarrass him. Tony was Howie’s father.)

“Mom and I are going to dinner. Want to join us?” 

“Yeah. Just let me get cleaned up.” Pepper reached them; her heels were lower now than ten years earlier. She smiled, her red hair streaked with faint hints of silver. She had declared she would die it all silver when Howie graduated. Until then it would stay red so Howie did not feel he had an old mom. 

“You are coming, right Tony? We aren’t going to eat alone because you fell asleep?” 

“No. I’m going.” He said stubbornly, even if his knees ached and the skin over his metal sternum felt too tight. “What do you say to Thai, kiddo?” 

Howie lit up. “Yeah. We haven’t been there in a while.” Howie wanted to talk, but Pepper ushered him away saying they could talk over dinner. She had looked so happy; Tony knew it would be great news.

He showered and just as he was stepping into a pair of shoes, his phone rang. He answered, Rhodey. The world dissolved into chaos after that. 

An accident, Pepper was hurt and Howie was missing. An AIM knock off was suspected, as were a dozen other organizations. 

He spent a week dead on his feet looking for his son, resting because he had to be in top condition to get him back. Bruce worked by his side while he slept. The most brilliant man he had met, he slept knowing the information would not fall to misinterpretation.

And it wasn’t fair that their only break was deliberate trap. If they had found that mole earlier…

It was a catch 22. A bullshit move by organizations that didn’t care about anything but their chaos, their supposed purpose was nothing more than an excuse to hurt people. Tony had shown up and been given a dilemma:

Save the lives of twenty innocent people, six being kids.

Save a group of frightened teenagers, taken from a school trip.

Or

His Howie, his son. 

The clock began and JARVIS and him calculated the percentages. Rhodey would head for the teenagers. (61% chance of success.) That left him with the kids or his son. (73% chance of success to a mere 13%.) 

Tony chose. 

This was not the movies. He could not talk and reassure them that he was on their way. That he was the goddamn Iron Man, and yes he had copied Batman, sue him. 

He imagined it. He imagined breaking into the room. Seeing twenty faces looking at him a hero as his son watch from Malibu or New York. Howie would be so proud. 

He imagined he had had only them as an option. He had imagined that to drown out the scenario in his mind:

“Daddy’s on his way buddy.”

“Dad, help!”

“I’m coming, kiddo. You have to hold on.”

“Dad, I’m scared.”

“I know, buddy. But you got to stay strong, I’m almost there.”

“I love you. And Mom.”

“Me too. Who doesn’t love your mom?” Howie would laugh and Tony would break into the room and save him. 

Instead he broke into a room filled with the dead visages of twenty people he had been expected to save. The footage he had seen earlier an earlier recording, as Rhodey declared his group dead over the line a few second earlier.

Tony flew as quickly as he could, not caring if he fell to the Earth to get to Howie. 

The explosion didn’t stop him and he went in looking for his son. There was a body. 

Tony liked to think they killed him before the explosion. That the body, too burnt to be analyzed for signs of torture, did not belong to his son Howie, waiting and begging for his father to reach him. 

It’s a lie he had to tell himself daily to get through the day.

Tony wished he never had played hero and been selfish.

But the world did not work that way and heroes had to make the hard choice of who lived and who died.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Death, child death and violence.


End file.
